Got rated top 8. Click to read more. http://www.nba.com/2012/news/featur...orning-tip-offseason-grades-part-1/index.html
I'm surprised Rockets are higher on the list than the Suns, Wolves, and Raptors who were ranked 16, 17, and 18 respectively.
It's hard to judge the quality of most moves before seeing the new team actually take the court. So, Aldridge gave Morey credit for having a high quantity of moves.
Not sure about that. Asik is a good addition but I'm not sure if he's better than a Dalembert/Camby combo for a full 48 mins. Lin is definitely a drop off defensively compared to Dragic or Lowry however. Lee was also a defensive stud that we lost. The only upgrade I can possibly see defensively is losing Scola but I haven't seen anything from the rookies that has the Defensive potential. I guess it's more of an addition by subtraction.
Says Morey would trade all of our rookies in a second for Dwight Howard…I thought Aldridge was the one that reported that they could only have one?
True but I also thought Hornets had a good offseason whom the Rockets are ahead of. They got rid of two big contracts and picked up some decent players.
Suns and Wolves had horrible offseasons. The Suns skipped any form of rebuilding and committed the next 4 years to fighting for the eighth seed. Worst thing you can do. The Wolves have a sub par core group of players and added vets. They will never compete with thier current group. I actually liked the Raptors. Lowry was a good pickup, but they blew the draft.
We don't have a better team defensively. We lost our best defensive players in Camby, Dalembert, and Lowry. Stop watching Summer league reruns and college youtube highlights that's not the real NBA.
I agree but we did eliminate Scola. That's a defensive improvement we're overlooking. Unless you like flopping. I can't see any 99'ers liking flopping.
Asik didn't play Summer League. Unlike Dalembert, Asik does more defensively than just block shots and rebound. Camby and Lowry will be missed defensively. I am very interested to see how Asik impacts a game if he gets to play starter minutes. I went out of my way to try to catch him play when the Rockets tried to trade Lee for him supposedly. If Patterson plays a lot of minutes, the entire frontline will have good defensive awareness with a rim protector. I don't know how well Rockets will be defensively, but Asik at least gives them a hope to be better.
I'm not sure I agree with the ranking. My top 5 would be Miami, Lakers, Houston, Portland and Dallas 1. Miami-pretty much what the article said 2. Lakers-Nash changes the game for the Lakeshow, I think he can prolong Kobe's career, and make Pau and Bynum co-exist. You can't really have a more built to win-now team than the Lakers. 3. Houston-The draft and Asik/Lin signing won't make the Rox champions, but it gave the team hope for the future and Linsanity filled up the waning fanbase. That's pretty much an amazing offseason, even if majority of it is due to non-basketball reasons. Who knows, the team might even and up competitive and we might have OKC 2.0 in 2-3 years. 4. Portland-The team managed to put solid pieces around LMA. Retaining Batum will help a lot, but more importantly I think they struck gold with Lilliard and Leonard. I think Leonard could be a Chandler clone in a couple of years, while Lilliard will be an instant-impact rookie on day 1. 5. Dallas-pretty much what the article said as well
I don't understand why it seems there is a new offseason rankings article every week, when the offseason hasn't ended yet. Dwight is still not traded, and you never know how many potential deals/decisions are dependent on that situation.